Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor

After the last result gave Labor its biggest lead of any poll since the election of the Abbott government, the latest fortnightly Newspoll has come in closer to trend.

GhostWhoVotes relates that the latest Newspoll has Labor’s lead at 51-49 after a blowout to 54-46 a fortnight ago, from primary votes of 41% for the Coalition (up two), 35% for Labor (down four) and 11% for the Greens (up one). More to follow.

UPDATE: The Australian’s report, which just maybe reads excessive political import into what’s actually statistical noise. Although it could indeed be telling that Bill Shorten’s ratings have again gone down despite a better set of numbers for Labor on voting intention.

UPDATE 2: Leader ratings have Tony Abbott up two on approval to 38% and down two on disapproval to 50%, while Bill Shorten is down two to 33% and up four to 43%. Tony Abbott makes a solid gain on preferred prime minister, his lead out from 38-37 to 42-36.

UPDATE 3 (Essential Research):Essential Research is 50-50, after the Coalition hit the lead 51-49 last week. The Coalition is down two on the primary vote to 42%, while Labor and the Greens are steady on 38% and 8%, and the Palmer United Party up one to 4%. The monthly personal ratings have Bill Shorten up two on approval to 32% and up five on disapproval to 39%, Tony Abbott down one to 40% and steady on 47%, and Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister down from 40-30 to 39-33. A question on Qantas shows respondents react negatively to the words “jobs being sent offshore”, 62% pressing the “disapprove” button despite the qualification of it happening improving the airline’s “profitability and long-term success”, while only 25% opted for approve. Fifty-nine per cent think foreign ownership would be bad for Australian jobs and 46% bad for the economy, versus 16% and 24% good. However, it would be thought good for Qantas profits by a margin of 48-19, and good for air travellers by 30-25.

UPDATE 4 (Morgan): The latest Morgan poll, conducted over the last two weekends from a sample of 2903 by face-to-face and SMS surveying, has a bounce in Labor’s lead from 50.5-49.5 to 53.5-46.5 on respondent-allocated preferences, which is a slightly more moderate 50.5-49.5 to 52.5-47.5 on previous election preferences. The Coalition is down 1.5% on the primary vote to 39.5%, Labor is up 1.5% to 37%, the Greens are up 1.5% to 12%, and the Palmer United Party is up half a point to 4%. Morgan has taken to including state breakdowns on two-party preferred, the latest set having Labor ahead 55-45 in New South Wales, 57-43 in Victoria and 51.5-48.5 in Queensland, while the Coalition leads 54.5-45.5 in Western Australia, 52.5-47.5 in South Australia and 52.5-47.5 in Tasmania.

Dr Henry is very very good at achieving the results that were required of him, however, if you start from a flawed premise, then you can reach the logically (or economically, in this case) correct conclusion, but still be incorrect. A budget surplus is not required, and should not be a target of any federal government. It should definitely not be considered the golden standard of economic governance, and we should not be basing the majority of our economic policy around achieving it.

Centre @1437

Recently, the IMF downgraded France’s economic credit rating, while keeping the UK’s the same. France has a projected debt-to-GDP ration that will decline over the coming years, whilst the UK’s will stay flat.

The only difference between the two is the methods they are using to achieve debt reduction. France is raising taxes on the wealthy, whilst the UK is slashing government expenditure.

It has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility.

Paul Krugman has a very good article on this on his blog, I’ll see if I can find it.

Dr Henry is very very good at achieving the results that were required of him, however, if you start from a flawed premise, then you can reach the logically (or economically, in this case) correct conclusion, but still be incorrect. A budget surplus is not required, and should not be a target of any federal government. It should definitely not be considered the golden standard of economic governance, and we should not be basing the majority of our economic policy around achieving it.

I am getting a whiff of Lyndon LaRouche thinking in your posts.

But I agree for the foreseeable future a surplus should not be on the economic agenda.

I did not see the interview. However from news excerpts to ne he was talking about the need to fix structural reform. His comment of no hurry on the GST it would be better to wait seems to indicate this,

If Henry is looking at revenue issues then its only natural that he would look at the GST, the current rate is fine, sure an argument could be made to expand it to cover education and maybe one or two other areas.

While a fiscal surplus is not an end in itself but rather the result of setting the appropriate fiscal conditions for the time. It should be horses for courses. Having said that a country like Australia can’t continue to run budget deficits at current levels over the longer-term. We have to accept the reality that if we want the level of social programs proposed and planned for then as a whole community we have to fund it through some combination of tax reform.

The problem is we want it all but no one wants to pay for it. Each sector and group says the others have to pay. End the end we will all have to pay in a fair and equitable manner.

As a guide to when we probably should be getting close to budget surplus I suggest once growth recovers to at or above trend whenever that is likely to be.

But we do need real tax reform and it has to be in the next term of parliament at the latest.

I saw the interview with Ken Henry, and I thought the reporting of it on later news bulletins misrepresented him a bit, surprise surprise.
The interviewer tried hard to get him to say the GST should rise, but he would not. He did say he was sure that it would rise, but asked if it needed to, he said he saw no necessity in the next few years. He also said that the Howard-Rudd tax cuts were in hindsight not sustainable, with the implication that they ought to be reversed. I had the impression that his preferred first option would be income tax rather than GST, but it was not reported that way.

Sweden, Denmark and Norway have value-added taxes of 25% (discounted in the latter case to a mere 15% in the case of foodstuffs). Such countries are, needless to say, exemplars of the social democracy to which Australia should aspire – except apparently in this case.

Centre there were/are a range of causes to the structural deficit issue and yes income tax is part of the mix. So is increases in welfare at all income levels. Also I never suggested the GST is the solution however it should be considered as being in the list of possible reforms. It’s just short-sighted to say that discussion of GST reform is taboo forever.

It was only proposed and finally introduced by conservative right wing governments because they were and still are too scared to propose or enact taxation from a basis of fairness equity and ability to pay.
The screams would be heard in London.

I should note that inequality and poverty in Australia are both increasing and drastically need addressing – but won’t be.

It’s probably a moot point anyway because I doubt any government will have the courage to seriously put proper tax reform on the agenda and the community as a whole lacks the maturity to discuss the issue effectively and is prone to reacting to fear, mostly perceived rather than real.

You do not need much brains to be a Sarah Palin clone. She is a country farmers wife who was a serial dog whistle blower in opposition. You could have asked the same question about Stephen Conroy in the Gillard cabonet. The answer is Yes in both cases.

You don’t have to agree with his point of view in all respects to find him impressive.

I’m of 2 minds about the GST – I’d prefer to see progressive tax increases over the GST, but the GST did not prove to be the great devil for lower income earners that many on the left said it would be. Modest increases or broadening of the GST would not be a disaster for anyone and I think it probably is worth including in the mix to fix the revenue hole for government.

He was very clear on the fact that the Feds and the States have a serious problem with lack of revenue, and particularly a lack of stable revenue, and he is clearly correct on this. He also made it quite clear that he didn’t think there was much to gain from trying to cut expenditure.

On other topics Henry was, in his dry understated way, incredibly damning of the current government.

He is acting as a free agent, not some patsy for this government. Disagree with what he says all you like (listen to him first, though!), but don’t accuse him of being part of some agenda.

I’m of 2 minds about the GST – I’d prefer to see progressive tax increases over the GST, but the GST did not prove to be the great devil for lower income earners that many on the left said it would be. Modest increases or broadening of the GST would not be a disaster for anyone and I think it probably is worth including in the mix to fix the revenue hole for government.

I’d broadly agree.

Any maintainable system of raising funds for community purposes will work best when it

a) raises funds from a broad range of usages
b) settles burdens on a capacity to pay basis
c) does not skew activity for or against a usage arbitrarily
d) is simple to comply with and easy/cheap to enforce in near real time
e) collects far more in revenue proportionately than the collection cost

Consumption-based levies can fail b) and c) quite easily against the disadvantaged but these problems are open to fairly easy remedies through the transfer payments system. It’s a significant advantage that the system captures revenue from non income taxpayers such as tourists and may be especially useful during times when the currency is low against currencies held by jurisdictions from which Australia draws significant numbers of visitors.

Subject to provision of this type, I have no basic objection to increasing the G&ST modestly, or even to broadening its scope to include usages not currently included — such as books, food, health, education and so forth. One would need to ensure that new funds raised in these areas were returned in an equitable and efficient way to those who were disadvantaged either in cash or service.

What a GST can’t do (assuming we stick to the idea of a common rate being applied across goods and services) but which a wholesale tax can quite elegantly is ‘reward and punish’ consumers by applying a variable rate.

For example, instead of public awareness campaigns, labelling and other indirect and sometimes clumsy methods, we could apply a tax to foods according to their nutritional benefits, with money raised going back to health services.

Or, if there’s sound evidence that a particular trade is not paying its fair share of tax (because it’s operating cash in hand, for example) you can target items essential to their trade and recoup money that way.

I cannot claim credit for Jackol’s views on the GST, but broadly agree with both of you. The GST can be effective in reducing regressive aspects of taxation, because it is so hard for wealthy individuals with low taxable income to avoid. This includes some pensioners who are asset millionaires. They need to pay more. I would be happy for the GST to be increased in exchange for a simple increase in the tax free threshold.

Also the GST exemptions, while well intended, have led to distorions. We see all sorts of executive retreat nonsense branded as “education”. End the exemptions and compensate instead.

Fran, thanks for the link. This use of the Government plane by Gillard is no better than what Brandis did.

The log also shows that return flights for Ms Gillard and her former chief spin doctors, John McTernan and Eamonn Fitzpatrick from Canberra to NSW north coast town of Ballina in March cost $8970. The visit coincided with the Byron Bay wedding of Ms Gillard's press secretary Laura Anderson and former treasurer Wayne Swan's chief of staff, Jim Chalmers.

About this blog

William Bowe is a doctoral candidate with the University of Western Australia’s Discipline of Political Science and International Relations. He has been running the electoral studies blog The Poll Bludger since January 2004, independently until September 2008 and thereafter with Crikey.